The present invention relates to a slider-level microactuator having an improved stroke length. More particularly, it relates to a microactuator located between a suspension and a slider in a disc drive system having an electroactive element to selectively move a transducing head radially with respect to a rotatable disc.
Disc drive systems include disc drive suspensions for supporting transducing heads over information tracks of a rotatable disc. Typically, suspensions include a load beam having a mounting region on a proximal end, a flexure on a distal end, a relatively rigid region adjacent to the flexure, and a spring region between the mounting region and the rigid region. An air bearing slider which holds the transducing head is mounted to the flexure. The mounting region is typically attached to a base plate for mounting the load beam to an actuator arm. A motor which is controlled by a servo control system rotates the actuator arm to position the transducing head over the desired information tracks on the disc. This type of suspension is used with both magnetic and non-magnetic discs.
The density of concentric data tracks on magnetic discs continues to increase (i.e., the size of data tracks and radial spacing between data tracks are decreasing), requiring more precise radial positioning of the head. Conventionally, head positioning is accomplished by operating an actuator arm with a large-scale actuation motor, such as a voice coil motor, to radially position a head on a slider at the end of the actuator arm. The large-scale motor lacks sufficient resolution to effectively accommodate high track-density discs. Thus, a high resolution head positioning mechanism, or microactuator, is necessary to accommodate the more densely spaced tracks.
One promising design for high resolution head positioning involves employing a high resolution microactuator in addition to the conventional low resolution actuator motor, thereby effecting head positioning through dual-stage actuation. Various microactuator designs have been considered to accomplish high resolution head positioning. These designs, however, all had shortcomings that limited the effectiveness of the microactuator. Many designs increased the complexity of designing and assembling the existing components of the disc drive, while other designs were unable to achieve the force and bandwidth necessary to accommodate rapid track access. Therefore, the prior designs did not present ideal microactuator solutions. More recent microactuator designs employ electroactive elements to effect movement of the suspension with respect to the actuator arm. This technique has proven effective but suffers from a small range of motion.
The positioning of a transducing head through dual-stage actuation using electroactive elements has been disclosed in prior patent applications. One such application is U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/311,086 filed May 13, 1999 by Budde et al. entitled “PIEZOELECTRIC MICROACTUATOR SUSPENSION ASSEMBLY WITH IMPROVED STROKE LENGTH,” which is assigned to Seagate Technology, Inc., the assignee of the present application and is hereby incorporated by reference. There remains a need in the art, however, for an electroactive element microactuator design that provides efficient high resolution head positioning in a dual-stage actuation system and allows for a greater range of motion than current designs.